Lorraine Hansberry's award-winning drama about the hopes and aspirations of a struggling, working-class family living on the South Side of Chicago connected profoundly with the psyche of black America-and changed American theater forever. The play's title comes from a line in Langston Hughes's poem "Harlem," which warns that a dream deferred might "dry upke a raisin in the sun."

Evelyn Del Rey is Daniela's best friend. They do everything together and even live in twin apartments across the street from each other: Daniela with her mami and hamster, and Evelyn with her mami, papi, and cat. But not after today--not after Evelyn moves away. Until then, the girls play amid the moving boxes until it's time to say goodbye, making promises to keep in touch, because they know that their friendship will always be special. The tenderness...

"JJ Ferguson has returned home to Pinewood, North Carolina, to build his dream house and to pursue his high school sweetheart, Ava. But as he reenters his former world, where factories are in decline and the legacy of Jim Crow is still felt, he's startled to find that the people he once knew and loved have changed just as much as he has. Ava is now married and desperate for a baby, though she can't seem to carry one to term. Her husband, Henry, has...

A debut of extraordinary distinction: Ayana Mathis tells the story of the children of the Great Migration through the trials of one unforgettable family. In 1923, fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd flees Georgia and settles in Philadelphia, hoping for a chance at a better life. Instead, she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins succumb to an illness a few pennies could have prevented....

A baby discovers all the things she loves about Halloween.

Madea has a wedding, a funeral, and a family reunion, and she did it all for 75 dollars.

The sequel to Lalita Tademy's bestselling CANE RIVER, the heartbreaking and compelling story of her family's experiences of slavery and the American Civil War. Now, in RED RIVER, she takes readers on a new journey: that of her father's family, whose experiences were more dramatic and painful still. From Sam Tademy, the son of a runaway slave, and his fiercely strong wife Polly, to the father and son who witness unspeakable crimes, this is an unforgettably...

The year is 1862, and the Civil War rages through the South. On a Virginia tobacco plantation, another kind of battle soon begins. There, Cassius Howard, a skilled carpenter and slave, risks everything--punishment, sale to a cotton plantation, even his life--to learn the truth concerning the murder of Emoline, a freed black woman, a woman who secretly taught him to read and once saved his life. It is clear that no one cares about her death in the...

Since Terry McMillan's breakout novel, Waiting to Exhale, surged onto the bestseller lists, her irreverent, hilarious, and pitch-perfect tales of women's lives and contemporary issues have captivated critics and readers alike. With The Interruption of Everything, McMillan takes on the fault lines of midlife and family life and reminds us once again of the redeeming power of friendship. Marilyn Grimes, wife and mother of three, has made a career of...

Historian and legal scholar Gordon-Reed presents this epic work that tells the story of the Hemingses, an American slave family and their close blood ties to Thomas Jefferson.